The study of the industrial arts of India, if the warnings of learned Orientalists are to be of any avail, is not a matter to be rashly undertaken. All Indian art must be viewed in reference to Indian religion. Forms, materials and colors have meanings that can only be caught by familiar acquaintance with a symbolism both intricate and obscure. Little decorative touches that to the untaught Western eye are introduced merely to give an artistic finish to an involved design, or to give room for bringing in the bit of color demanded by the sense of harmony, have all a meaning not necessarily connected with art. While in the West the problems of art are dealt with by men whose eyes are bent on art alone, the Oriental artist solves these problems while keeping his eyes fixed upon religion. The maturity of Indian religious life was reached several centuries before our era began: it then took a form which it still retains. There is no secular life from which it can be distinguished. When a domestic utensil is examined, the first question to be answered is, What religious meaning attaches to it? This is an appalling fact, for it means that the arts of India cannot be appreciated as the Hindus appreciate them until we have mastered an accumulation of mythological and legendary lore such as possibly no other country has amassed. [Illustration: HINDU WOMAN REELING SILK.] To appreciate the full extent of a task that already seems to hang like a shadow over the whole of what yet remains of one's life, it may be pointed out that the Vedas form only one of four groups of sacred writings, that there are four Vedas, and that each one of the four consists of four parts. Then there are Upa-Vedas, Ved-Angas and Upangas; and under the last-named fall the epics of the _Ramayana_, of ninety-six thousand lines, and the _Mahabharata_, of two hundred and twenty thousand long lines, not to mention others. These are mere glimpses into a vista long and dark, and it seems a little odd that one should be called upon to go through so much in order to appreciate a specimen of carving from Vizagapatam, an inlaid table-top from Agra, a box of Cashmere lacquer or a panel of carved sandal-wood from Canara. The fact is, that the matter may be looked at from another point of view--that taken up by those who decline to see anything in a painting but canvas and paint--who care for nothing in the shape of sentiment or story, but have a single eye to art. In this way the beauty and harmony of Oriental coloring, the delicacy and wonderful finish in all manner of carvings, the skill displayed in inlaying and chasing--in a word, all the points of industrial art in India--may be both enjoyed and understood without a reference to the Puranas or the Code of Manu, or without the observer's being able to enumerate the avatars of Vishnu. The inquirer is thus borne up against the deterrent influence of specialists, with the plaintive notes of whose voice he